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If the guns could not be entirely silenced, then as much damage as possible was to be done, and the assault was to be attempted in any case. The men signified their comprehension of the plan with a cheer; then rifles were loaded, bayonets fixed, cartridge-pouches refilled, and cutlasses brought up from below and belted on.
We take the meaning, and let the letter hang! "Besides! The way it seems to me, if there's any more trouble cooking in this neighborhood, it's going to cook pretty fast, and it's going to boil around that guardroom; and if we're not in the guardroom, why, that's point number one for us! Leave the guardroom lantern lighted, and bring out nothing but your cartridge-pouches and the box of ammunition.
Here be whips, trumpets, swords, guns, cartridge-pouches, belts, scabbards, sabretaches, all those magic toys which, from five to nine years old, made me feel that I was fulfilling the destiny of a Napoleon. I played that mighty rôle, in my tenpenny soldier's kit, I played it from start to finish, bating only Waterloo and the years of exile. For, mark you, I was always the victor.
Having drained it he spat out the last mouthful, and along with it a lively creature like a small shrimp, with something like a screw-propeller under its tail! Enjoying our tea under the shade of the mimosa, we rested for an hour, and then, saddling our steeds and slinging on rifles and cartridge-pouches, we mounted, and sallied forth upon the plain.
“I will do so.” The large boat was rapidly got ready. Eight men embarked in it, including Martin Holt and Hunt, all armed with rifles, pistols, and knives; the latter weapons were slung in their belts. They also carried cartridge-pouches. I stepped forward and said, “Will you not allow me to accompany you, captain?” “If you wish to do so, Mr. Jeorling.”
Some of the cartridge-pouches that I examined were completely filled, showing that their possessors had not fired a single round; others had but one cartridge missing. There were fragments of clothing, hair, blankets, murderous bowie and dirk knives, spurs, flasks, caps, and plumes, dropped all the way through the thicket, and the trees on every hand were riddled with balls.
The officers were also silently preparing buckling on their swords, taking revolvers from their belt-holsters, and filling the chambers from their cartridge-pouches, quite mechanically, without taking their eyes off the watchers on the wall.
Great stones, detached from walls and arches, lay about the forsaken grass like tombs. Hustled by the wind, we were reviewed by the captain, who fumbled in our cartridge-pouches and knapsacks with the intention of giving imprisonment to those who had not the right quantity of cartridges and iron rations. In the evening we set off, laughing and singing, along the great curves of the road.
Leaving the Caucasus, he presented himself once more in Moscow, in a Circassian coat, with cartridge-pouches on the breast, a dagger in his belt, and a tall fur cap on his head. From this costume he did not part until the end, although he was no longer in the military service, from which he had been dismissed for not reporting on time.
One day, as I was sitting before the samovár at a posting-station on the T highway, waiting for horses, I suddenly heard, under the open window of the station-room, a hoarse voice uttering in French: "Monsieur ... monsieur ... prenez pitié d'un pauvre gentilhomme ruiné!".... I raised my head and looked.... The kazák cap with the fur peeled off, the broken cartridge-pouches on the tattered Circassian coat, the dagger in a cracked sheath, the bloated but still rosy face, the dishevelled but still thick hair.... My God!
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